It's Not My Thing (Final): Part Two

February 2015

I land my double salto pass in a hole in the floor, and I feel my back crack in a place that it has not cracked before, and I fall to the ground. Whitney runs over to me, lying on the ground crying out in pain, the whole gym stops and stares “are you okay?” I nod, and stand up after a few minutes. I have to walk this off; my back is not allowed to get hurt right before another meet.

Miami happens, and of course everything that could go wrong did. It started with the cars breaking down before we left, the middle was filled with juicy and soaked grips, rips, and tips for my back, and it ended with multiple team members puking on the way home and my car not starting at Chipotle on the way home. This is also another significant marker; Daniel and I have now gone through two meets where it is almost complete silence between the two of us. I have spent those meets crying and squirming afterwards because of my back pain. The only teammates that would actually understand my tears is Zara and Daniel, and she doesn’t seem to notice that something is off. Daniel sees it, but chooses to ignore it. We are civil with each other, but nothing is the same, and he has shut off any feelings of happiness, encouragement, or caring towards me.

I have stopped talking to either of them about anything. When it comes to Zara, I feel like the tricking me at my party was another crack in a glass cup, and I have finally shattered. I need a complete break from her right now, and the fact that we are competing together every weekend does not help and soon we will leave for Italy to study abroad together as well. When it comes to Daniel, I am tired of him ignoring the fact that we are weird with each other now.

 We come back from our spring break together, abroad in Italy, and both go home for the last two days of it. When I get back late Sunday night I meet Will in our parking lot, waiting for one of us to come home. I assume he is there for Zara until he invites me over, to him and I ask him what’s up. “Zara broke up with me…”

March 2015

            Apparently Tyler came crawling back and I tell her that I am happy for her, but I don’t think I am mentally ready for the head games to start again. I have my own to deal with. The next head game we are in is that Tyler is now pissed that she dated someone while they were broken up. On top of it, this whole not talking thing with Daniel has become too much. I finally break down and talk to Zara about everything, and she disagrees with my feelings of needing to talk to him, but I am starting to not care what she thinks about my relationship with Daniel. I want to fix this, and I will. Despite what Zara thinks.

            “Thanks for finally coming to get lunch with me,” I say as Daniel and I sit in the parking lot of a broken down marathon as we eat our Subway in the car. I didn’t want to talk with him in public, but I didn’t want to be around Zara either, or have her overhear anything that I say to Daniel. Payphone plays on the stereo in the background.

            “No problem, what is it you wanted to talk about?”

            I turn down the music and set down my sub, “Dan, I have been getting awkward vibes from our relationship, and we are about to spend five days in a row together for Nationals. Can we just go back to what we were before we kissed? That was a mistake. I know that I should not have pushed you; I know that I should not have lied to you, and my biggest regret is trusting what Zara or Will had handed to me. I should have known.” I shake my head, and play with my olives that have fallen out of the sub.

            “Cal, at this point, we have to go back to what we were. It just hurt that everyone on the team was pushing you and I together, even though we, the two of us,” he motions to us, “have talked personally about the situation. I have gotten over the kiss, I have not gotten over the actions that lead up to it.” I nod, and apologize. I apologize for taking the drink, I apologize for putting myself in the situation to even think about kissing him, I apologize for the story I wrote about him, although it was pretty endearing, for the bet, for the drinking for not being the kind of girl he is looking for, for him not being the guy I am looking for. I also tell him that what happened at my party was not what I wanted. If we were to have kissed I wanted it to be just us, maybe the parking lot, since we, as a club, always seem to have intimate interactions and conversations there. “It’s not what I wanted…” I admit, and for the first time in a long time I feel clean. I feel good.

            He smiles and looks at me, “do we have the old Callie back now?”

            “Yes, I am sorry I left for such a long time. I honestly thought about ending our friendship, like I thought I didn’t care anymore, but if any relationship needs to end, it’s my relationship with Zara, not the one that I messed up with you.”

            “Just remember to do you, and only you, none of this Zara mess.” I nod, and we finish our subs and listen to the newest song out, Shut Up and Dance.

April 2015

            The conversation in the car didn’t take care of everything, things are better, but they are not back to what they once were. There are no intimate talks anymore, no kisses on the cheeks or forehead, none of those cute but unromantic talks as I walk him out to the car. There are still things about my relationship with Daniel that is different, is weird. I find that I am scared to touch him, as if hugging him would be crossing some sort of line. Sometimes I feel like I am not allowed to look at him anymore either or record any of his gymnastics, even if it is so that I can make the next video. The little things seem too much; too intimate, and I can feel myself still pulling away sometimes.

            I come back from Easter weekend exhausted, and Zara wants to know what is wrong with my family now. She says that she can see it on my face that something is wrong, and that it’s not my usual, “my family is messed up,” or “I hate being at home,” face.

            “My Dad is now in rehab for alcohol. My Mom, brother and sister had to go to a hotel for a week, and then stayed at my aunt’s house until Dad finally checked himself into rehab. This is why I don’t drink,” I throw my jacket on the couch and put all of my things in my room. “I think I am done drinking, for good. No more ‘trying,’ especially after almost ruining my friendship with Daniel, and now my family falling apart. I don’t want anything to do with it anymore. I don’t want anything to do with this ‘college life’ that you have me living. I don’t like to party, I don’t like to drink; I don’t feel comfortable in intimate exchanges with young men. I mean for God’s sakes, I screamed in Daniels face when he tried to kiss me.” Zara nods, and says that she understands. “On the plus side,” I take a breath, “Nationals is next weekend!” Nationals will be a good, and fun vacation from everything, although, I feel like I just got back from Italy. How many breaks do I need?

            Many after the year that I have had.

            I stand in my room looking at my packing list for Nationals and recall the night that Daniel kissed me on the forehead in our parking lot and told me to “do you” and not let Zara change that. I listened to him, for a little bit, but then I fell right back into her games.

            “So I still have not heard back from my teacher,” Zara says barging into my room, “I can’t miss this day, it’s a presentation day.”

            We are discussing nationals, it has come to our attention that for her study abroad class from spring break, she has to do a presentation and the professor scheduled it for the Sunday that we come home from nationals. We wouldn’t make it back in time, “have you gone to her office hours?”

            “Every time I go, she isn’t there.”

            “I don’t know what to tell you… I mean, unless you fly back?”

            “The tickets are so expensive now, it’s not worth it, besides the earliest ones leave Saturday night.”

            “You would miss the banquette and the party…”

            “Exactly, and nationals isn’t just some meet that you go to, compete, and then party afterwards. It’s special and I want to enjoy it… if I were to go.” At this point I nod, we have been discussing nationals for weeks, and she has been so back and forth. I can only tell her that I want her to come to nationals so many times. I know I probably shouldn’t want her there, after all that has happened, but she is my best friend, and I can’t help but think about Chattanooga last year, it was a blast, and that was when we truly became best friends. I really just want a chance to re-live that week; because that is the happiest I have been… for the longest amount of time in a row.

            I get a call from Shawn, asking for a haircut from me, “yeah I can give you a haircut, but I don’t have clippers, we would have to go to Will’s apartment, but I don’t think he is home…” I pause for a second, “but I do have a key.”

            I text Will to let him know that we are kind of breaking into his apartment, Zara has come along, and we pull out the clippers, and plug it in as Will walks through the door, “oh hey.”

            “Did you get my text?” I ask as I start on the left side of Shawn’s head and work around to the back and then the front.

            “Yeah, I was actually in my parking lot when you texted me that, and I am surprised because I didn’t see you. Did you go around the back way?”

            “No, we would have walked right in front of you…” I laugh.

            “Well I clearly wasn’t paying attention,” he laughs, “Do you want to cut my hair too while you’re at it?” Will asks from the kitchen as he starts to Doser.

 “so is it official Zara, you’re not going to Nationals?”

            Zara shakes her head, “nope, I have class on Sunday, and she won’t respond to any e-mails I send her and she is never there during her office hours.”

            “Well the fact that she has you coming in on a Sunday, you could just claim religious freedom. Have you gone to the person above her?”

            “No, I don’t even know who to go for that.”

            “Umm…” he pauses, and thinks for a second. “Okay, the offices are going to close soon,” he says looking at his watch. “Lets go over there quickly, I will yell at them, get you Sunday off and then we will come back here and figure out everything, Callie will cut my hair, finish the Nationals Promotional video, and then we will go out to eat for dinner. Sound good?”

            I finish Shawn’s hair about ten minutes before they get back, which gives me ten minutes to finish editing the Nationals Promotional video. Except, now I have to add in some videos of Zara, because she is now competing at Nationals. We take about twenty minutes out of our schedule to cut Will’s hair, and then we make a trip over to the car rental place, and figure out what the best option is so that Whitney will not yell at us when she finds out that we paid for an extra car to get Zara down there later. We also text random people on the team to see who would be willing to leave a whole day later than the rest of the team, “we need at least four other people.” Zara says on the phone with one of the freshman, “no that’s okay, I totally understand.”

            “Kristen wants to go down with the rest of the team,”

            “Mike said he would go later!”

            “So did Sammi,” I smile at her, “we have our four people. We did it, you’re going to Nationals! I think we need to celebrate with food!”

            “I agree!” Zara says standing up.

            We head to Red Robin, “hey, is Megan working today?” I ask as I start to dial her number, if that’s the case, we decide that we should invite more people. I hang up the phone, “Megan is already there, just got off, and she is saving us a place.”

            “Patricia is coming, so is Whitney, and Daniel.”

            The typical team things happen, such as phone stealing, selfie-taking, the evil looks, the sharing of funny videos, the jokes where heads are thrown back in uncontrollable laughter. It’s one of the nights where you look back and think, “Yeah, it was good.”

            “I kind of want to go bowling…” Zara says to the table and all the eyes widen.

            “Can we please?” Patricia says putting her spoon down and smiling at the rest of the team. Zara makes plans, and we head to go bowling. It is eleven o’clock at night and we have to leave at seven-thirty in the morning, and I haven’t even packed yet. Bowling is such a great idea.

            I honestly forgot how much I suck at bowling, and I realize that I should have put up the guards; we all realize this after the first round. As the night goes on we get a little crazier with everything we do. We put our names in as ridiculous nic-names. Daniel is in as “THEMAN” as in “Dan the man.” Shawn is put into the computer as “HELP”, because of a previous joke that he would be “the help” in our apartment next year and Will is in as FREEWILLY. Whitney is in the computer as, ITSWHITNEYBITCH, WARDEN for Zara because Zara is constantly yelling at the club to turn in their dues or to sign up for a fundraiser. I’m in the computer as SLUT because that is the complete opposite of me; in fact, Daniel was only the second guy I have ever kissed, so I am the most innocent on the team… Daniel in a close second, although he claims that he is number one. Patricia is in the computer as SANDBAGGER, because she is lazy at practice and then whips out hard skills out of nowhere, and Megan is in as BASIC because she is a basic white girl with her Chipotle cravings, her daily Starbucks, Sperry shoes, and PINK clothing.

            Zara takes to having a couple glasses of wine while we are bowling, she uses her sister’s old I.D. so her fake is extremely real, and she has yet to get caught by anyone. We blast the Spice Girls on the way home, and Zara drunkenly directs me home, and I drop off freshman at desired locations. “Good night, see you tomorrow bright and early!”

            The car arrangements change the minute that I arrive, so all of mine, and Zara’s efforts to organize cars so that the best friends would be together was a waste. I hop into the car with the other sophomores, minus Zara, and I find that I am happy with the option of hanging out with just Shawn, Kyla and Daniel. Maybe I will start to get closer with the three of them with the ten hours of us being stuck together in a car, and a very small car at that. Kyla starts us off with the tunes, and puts on a song that Daniel has apparently been in love with for about a week now. Kyla looks at Daniel with a smile on her face, and the smile on his face spreads as he hears the opening chords to Shut Up and Dance by Walk The Moon. This song plays about twenty times during our time in the car.

            As the time passes and we get bored, we find someone on the team’s number, Whitney’s, and we write it down and post it to the side of the car. “Call for a good time,” it says, hanging in the window. Another hour passes, and we decide to start waving at the passing traffic that is going into Philadelphia. Shawn looks back to me, and realizes that the sign is still hanging in the window, “Callie, take that down if you’re going to be creepily waving to strangers.” He says as he grabs the sign and we all laugh. I completely forgot that it was there.

            We have the open practice, but most of us leave after hitting a couple skills on each event. The floor kills my back, the beam is hard, and the bars are stiff, I don’t even try to go over the vault. It has become a thing that when we go to away meets, my steps are off and I don’t go over the vault for the first couple of runs that I try. We get back to our hotel room, as Kyla, Shawn and Daniel walk into the all girls room, which is the one that I am in, “do you wanna go explore the hotel and hopefully find food?” I twist my newly highlighted, blonde and red, violet strands of hair into a bun, wrap a hair tie around it, and shake it a little bit to make it loose.

            “Sure, I’m not doing anything interesting. Let me change out of my leo first though.” The guys take a seat on the bed, and I just strip off my top so I am standing in front of everyone in my sports bra with my leotard pulled down. I throw on a sweatshirt, and finish stripping my leotard off. The guys are facing away, but somehow a part of me has become comfortable enough that I wouldn’t care if they saw me walking around in my sports bra and now-a-days, thong. Should I still be uncomfortable? Or is this a sign that I actually trust them?

            I throw on some jeans and pair of flip-flops, grab my purse, and join the group who is sitting on the beds talking. Shawn grabs Kyla’s massive and expensive camera, and as we walk around the hotel we take handstand pictures, mirror pictures. We talk about the equipment, and how we think that nationals are going to go. “Well the best friends are going to stick together, so we can expect Megan and Patricia to stick together, Whitney and Paige... Zara and Callie…” Shawn says, looking at me. Daniel looks at me with his eyebrows raised.

            “Are you going to stick with Zara most of the time?” he asks.

            I take a minute and think, I wanted her here, I begged her to come, I helped her make it possible for her to come. Now that I am here, hanging out with my fellow sophomores, do I really want her here? Yes, of course I do! “Yeah, I mean… I am going to hang out with her as long as I am not annoyed with her.”

            “Well you’re always welcome to hang out with us.” Kyla says as we explore the seventh floor. The hallways are winding, and every new floor looks the same, but has a different feature to it. Such as, one has a big window in the corner of the hallway; another one has a lounge area.

            “Thanks,” I smile, and I look around at the group. These are the same people that I have heard Zara diss so many times. She would talk about how Kyla is too quiet and awkward. She then would talk about how Shawn is too tall, too touchy. Finally, she would go off on Daniel, saying that he is gay and in the closet, and the next minute she would talk about how he is secretly in love with me, but won’t say anything because he respects me too much. “He just needs to man up and figure it out with you.” She would tell me, right after she is done telling me that he is secretly gay. For the first time I realize that Zara has been spewing hateful words into my ears for the last two years. Despite what she has said, I have become friends with the three of them, I have trusted them, and spent time away from her and with them, but I wonder if I would be better friends with them if it wasn’t for Zara. All I know is that I made the effort to be friends with them, and she hasn’t. I really think she is missing out.

            The first full day in Philly is freezing, and we all run out of cellular data, so most of us don’t know where we are going, but we make it fun. We are a team that takes pictures, so we take pictures in front of The Rocky statue, and at some famous stairs that everyone runs up, but I don’t know why. We stop by board game Park, and the Love sign, and for some reason a group of girls keep talking about a sex position that they came up with on the way here called the pterodactyl. Late Thursday night, Zara, Will, Sammi and Mike show up, and we make a bed for Zara because all the other beds have three people in them. I get to sleep at the foot of the bed, but I am out quickly.

            I wake up to chaos, everyone is running around half naked, asking for their hair to be braided or curled. I am being pulled in fourteen different directions and when it comes time for competition, I throw my hair up into a pony tail with braided bangs, slap on some maroon mascara to make my eyes pop, and I leave the hotel room chasing after the other girls.

            We start on bars, and it still hurts my back to hold my legs up off the floor when I glide and do kips, but I have been working this for a long time, so I am not about to back out of this routine. I see the judge, in her late seventies, early eighties, smile and she raises her right hand at me. I turn my body to her, raise both hands, smile and turn back to the bar. I place my hands in front of me, straight out and breathe. “You’ve got this Callie,” I step my back foot together with my front foot and jump off the spring board, straddling my legs, and bringing them together once they are under the bar. My legs come up to my hands, and then through the hole that my arms give. My feet shoot up to the ceiling so my butt rises above the bar, I straddle my legs, let go of my hands, and right as my hands reach for the bar, they tap, but my feet catch my body on the floor before my hands can even try to reach any further for the bar. I stare at the bar, disappointed that I am being given the chance to once again stare at the bar. The only part of the bar I should be seeing right now is the bar that is between my hands, as I am circling around the bar, but instead I am standing, still on the floor once again with the bars laughing at me. They tell me that I tried to master this skill, that I have only missed this cut once in competition, before this season, but I have missed it for two meets in one year. It tells me that no matter how hard I try with gymnastics something will always hurt. My back, my ankles, my knees, my wrists, my shoulders… it’s always something.

            I jump to the bar, straddle my legs under the bar, and bring them together, my feet come to the bar, I rotate my hands to the top of the bar, and around again. I watch the bar, I feel the pull on my hips as I keep my feet off the ground, and my legs straight. Once I am on top of the bar again, I put my feet on the bar between my hands, stand up and jump to the high bar. I swing under the bar, forwards then backwards and pull my body to the bar, and I rotate and circle underneath. Just keep going, I tell myself and breathe. I drop my body below the bar after one circle, hips not touching, I swing and bring my feet back to the bar, rotate my hands on top of the bar, and once my hips touch the bar one more time, I push off, bend my hips, and when my body is parallel with the floor, I let go. I rotate my body in a circle, and rotate it sideways so that I turn half way around. I look for Whitney who is standing on the other side of the low bar as my feet hit the ground. Callie, you landed it, you landed your dismount! I let out the breath that I was holding in since I had jumped to the bar for the second time, smile and salute the judge.

            As I walk off the mat, I find that I am grabbing my back in pain. Next is beam, but I hop on, and without much wobbling, I find that my heart is pounding. I am pretty sure that I can feel my heartbeat in my hands. I keep telling myself to breathe when I am doing choreography, but when I am doing a skill to hold my breath. I tell myself to watch the end of the beam, and when it comes to my dismount, I snap my fingers three times, and take a breath. Whitney stands at the end of the beam mat, holding it in place. I run, and at the end of the beam, drive my feet over my head as fast as possible, body completely arched. My feet hit the floor and I take a step back. I landed this dismount as well! I turn and salute the judge with a wide spread smile on my face.

            Whiney is up after me, she forgets to do her “sexy wink” as she calls it, but her Ariel comes, and she taps her left foot three times. I see her take a deep breath as she leans forward and pushes off her feet. She holds her hands away from the beam, and I watch her eyes watch the beam. She cartwheels without her hands touching, and her feet plant straight on the beam as if her legs and feet were trees and the beam connected the roots. Whitney lands her dismount as well, turns and salutes.

            Floor is next, and no matter how many times that I stand in the corner in support of Zara, and move her mats for her, she still doesn’t go for her pass, which would give her an extra two tenths on floor. As I am standing the corner of the floor for the hundredth time, as she is running to go for her pass, I ask myself, “why are you standing here? Why are you doing all this for her? Because you love her, just like you would do the same thing for Daniel without even being asked. Right? Yes, of course, but at what point does everything become too much? She makes you feel inferior, in your gymnastics, in your efficiency in your problem solving, even when you guys go out, she always gets the number. She betrayed you, sabotaged many relationships right from the beginning. Please, tell me why you care about her so much, why you put up with it. Why are you still friends with her?” She lands her pass, smiles and jumps up and down in excitement.

            “Great! Now go for it in your routine!” I yell, and pull the mat off the floor for the next gymnast to compete.

            A couple of minutes later, and Zara is up. She kneels down on the floor; legs spread one arm up, one arm down as she looks to the ceiling. Will comes and joins me on the side as I stand in the corner, for her to spot when she lands her bonus pass. “I promised her that if she went for this pass in her routine that I would make you both dinner while we have a cards night.”

            “What would be for dinner?” I ask with a laugh.

            “She said steak.” I nod, and now pray to the good God above that she goes for this pass. I want some homemade steak, and I want it to be cooked by Will. Her jumps come, and then she stands in the corner, starts her two snaps, and on the third one she takes off running towards Will and I. She punches, and lands the first salto, completely laid out, and immediately goes for the next one without hesitation, but instead of laying it out, she tucks it.

            I sigh and look at Will, “that doesn’t count does it?” He shakes his head and we clap as we continue to cheer.

            I am up next, I salute the judge, smile and walk to my beginning spot. Left heel popped, hands and head down and my music starts. Dance, dance dance, leap pass, keep going. Make it to the corner, there you go, don’t forget to breathe! Snap your fingers three times, one, two three, and on the third go. Run, run, run, punch the floor, tuck, punch, tuck, land.

            “Callie always has a huge smile on her face after she lands a tumbling pass.” I hear Whitney’s voice travel through my head, I hear my own laugh ring through my ears as I think about her telling me that months ago right after I had been done competing my floor routine. Dance, dance, dance, kick, turn, keep your leg up for one… two… three… and down, hand flick. Kick, turn, roll backwards to handstand, finish, and make it to the corner. Dance, run, tumble, twist, look for the floor, land, stick!

            The last part of my routine I finish my jumps and look around. “Keep going!” I hear someone scream, where am I on the floor? I suddenly realize that I don’t know what corner I am supposed to be in or where I am supposed to be facing. I pick the closest corner and head to it. Dance, dance, tumble, dance and finish with the music. Stand up, salute, smile, and laugh.

            I can’t believe I forgot part of my routine.

            Vault comes with it’s usual problems, but I make it over enough times to be somewhat comfortable with the runway as long as Zara is standing down there when I go over. I land and salute.

            As soon as competition is over, we shower, and when I come out in a towel, I see Shawn, Will and Daniel sitting in the room. “Do you want us to leave? We can.” Will says looking at me with my blonde hair slicked back and my face still red from the shower.

            “No, it’s okay, just turn your back,” I say and they all move so that I can change while they face the other way. A couple of minutes later Zara walks out, in a similar towel.

            After the whole team is showered, there is miscommunication, and I wake up hours later, at the end of the bed curled up in a ball with Zara stumbling over pillows and blankets that are on the floor. I hear a crunch, and that is when I finally open my eyes. “Oh, well those chips are smashed,” she says. I open my eyes and I see Will holding Zara’s arm up so that she can stable herself, “Callie, do you want to go swimming with me?” Zara says with her breath pouring into my nose, I can smell the margarita’s on her breath. At this Whitney, and Paige wake up, slowly sitting up as Whitney throws a pillow over to Megan and Patricia. Zara leans in a puts all of her weight on me, begging me to come down and go swimming with her.

            “Guys, somehow we fell asleep.” Whitney says, her voice tired, “that meet killed us.”

            “Seriously, when did I get this old?” I say, sitting up, grabbing my lower back as I imagine many elderly people do, when they reach the age I feel.

            “Umm, excuse me. How old are you?” Whitney asks.

            “Twenty, remember? You came to my birthday party.”

            “Yeah, and I am twenty-three and still flipping around. So you can wait three years before you start saying that you are old.” I laugh thinking about all the abuse that my body is going to go through over the next three years the falling, the pounding, the scrapes, and bruises, the pulling, the pushing… all of it over the next three years.

            “You do realize that my back is literally feeling like knifes are being stuck into the bottom of my back every time I move?”

            “Well, I am sorry about that, but you’re not old.”

            “It’s okay, and I’m sorry I called you old when I called myself old.” Whitney laughs at our trivial argument. “So we are going swimming?”

            We come back from our time at the pool, and Zara has downed the equivalent to a full bottle of wine. We open up the door to our room and Daniel is in the room looking for Megan’s phone charger. “Hey, how was swimming?” He asks, as Zara hangs over the my shoulders whispering words of affection into my ear. She won’t shut up. Daniel continues to move around piles of cloths.

            Zara went straight to the bathroom to change into her cloths, and I sit on a bed next to Daniel, “she’s completely drunk, and she wants to go get out to get more.”

            “You can always come out with Kyla, Shawn, Megan, Patricia and I,”

            “Have you guys eaten yet?”

            “Yeah, we just got back from a really nice restaurant that my parents paid for.”

            “I would, but I am starving. Maybe afterwards?”

            “Sure! Just stop by the party room.” I nod, “have you seen Megan’s phone charger?”

            “She was plugging in her phone over there,” I point to a plug that is right next to the headboard of the bed.

            “Oh thank you. Hey, I gotta go they are waiting for me, but after you eat come stop by if you have had too much of Zara.” I nod, and smile as he leaves the room and Zara walks out in a nice outfit and I look at her confused.

            “Are you planning on going out after we eat?”

            “Possibly, I might stop by the party downstairs when we get back.”

            “Oh, okay.” I throw on a nice floral shirt, my leather jacket that I bought over spring break when we were in Italy, and a nice pair of jeans with boots. Finally I throw my hair into a sock bun with a part down the middle.

            I walk out of the bathroom after five minutes to find Will and Zara talking. “Oh my gosh, my best friend is Hot!” Zara yells, and I just look at her. My head is pounding as she slings her heavy arms around my body. I can’t handle her right now.

            “Guys, my head hurts, and I am not feeling well. Can we just go get food?”

            Zara gives me some medicine, as Whitney and Paige walk into the room, “are you guys leaving?” Whitney asks.

            “Yeah, we are going to go get food. Do you want to come?”

            “God, yes, I am starving!”

            “Well we are about to leave.”

            “Okay, let me grab my purse, and we can go.” I sit on my bed, the room is spinning, as we head out, I notice as Zara grabs Will’s hand, while Paige and Whitney stick together and start making snap chat videos together. I am the fifth wheel in this, but at this point I don’t care. I just want food, and to make it back to the hotel room.

            We have our second round of Philly cheese steaks, and at this point I know that nothing will compare to an original cheese steak from Philadelphia. We make our way back to the hotel, and I follow Will and Zara to the party room, where Whitney and Paige immediately greet their friends from other teams. A couple of minutes into it, Paige starts freaking out that she sent a message to the group text that offended someone. “I texted her, and apologized, but I don’t know if she is mad at me or not. I didn’t mean it.”

            “Who was it?” I ask, knowing that my phone is dead, and I wasn’t going to find out from anyone else. “Kyla,”

            “You know what? I’ll go talk to Kyla and see what is going through her mind.” This gets me out of the party room, and upstairs to hang out with the rest of the team. I head upstairs, and the team party room’s door is open. I quickly talk with Kyla, about what Paige said, “look, I know that she is drunk, and that she didn’t mean it. It’s not a big deal.” I nod, and tell Paige that all is good, as I hang out with others for a while.

            Eventually we gather and lay on the two beds, facing each other. We start grilling all the teammates that aren’t here. I lay my head down, not wanting to be in the drama, but I keep my ears open for what is being said. Soon enough it is Zara’s turn, and I bite my tongue. “I actually think that she hates everyone on the team. I don’t know why she even stays, and hangs out with us if she just goes back to Callie and trash talks us with her.”

            “Isn’t Callie in the room?” I hear Daniel ask, and I feel everyone’s eyes on me, I pretend to be asleep.

            “I think she is asleep.” Another teammate says looking at me, I can feel it. “Callie, can you hear me?” I continue to pretend to be asleep; I want to know what they think.

            “Do you think that Callie hates everyone too?”

            “She couldn’t could she? I mean she runs all of our social media, she makes us those videos for our birthdays, and recaps of the meets and the seasons. She even makes random video’s that makes the team look like a family. She is always putting her opinion in about what she thinks is best for the club, would she really go back to her apartment with Zara and talk about how much she hates us?” Shawn says, and I feel my tense body relax. Thank you Shawn, I let a small, quiet breath escape my mouth, and try to steady my breathing so I still look like I am asleep.

            “Guys, I know Callie. Eastern is an escape for her, family life…” Daniel pauses, “this is her second chance, this team is everything to her. She may not be close with some people, but I don’t think there is anyone on the team that she dislikes, or even would go far enough to hate.” Thank you Daniel, “Zara however, I know for a fact hates half of the people on the team. Callie may not be in on the trash talk, but she definitely gets the earful. If she does with Zara what she does with me, then she just sits and listens, gives a portion of her opinion without ticking the other person off.”     

            “Well, when it comes down to it, Zara is the team bitch. I mean, just look at what happened when it came to fund raising. She threatened to charge us more money for not having time to help. I mean, that was all of March, her yelling at us for not helping.”

            “Speaking of that, I talked to Callie about it as it was happening, I told her that I didn’t have time to do the fund raising. So she said that she would take care of it.”

            “What did she do?”

            “No idea.”

            “Actually, I know.” Daniel says, “She and I went out to subway because she we had some things to talk out. She later told me about your situation, and that Zara thought that Callie was out with Shawn passing out fliers for fundraising to get his credit. Callie not only spent the afternoon fixing our friendship, but she also lied to her best friend to help out a teammate who is also clearly dedicated to the team.”

            “So do you think that Zara is a bad influence on Callie?” Kyla asks, this is the first time I hear her talk.

            “I think that Zara has had her moments of being a bad influence on Callie, but…” Daniel stops, I’m guessing to get his words together.

            “But I think Callie’s caring, and loving personality overpowers Zara’s bossy personality most of the time.” Kyla breaks in, and there is a moment of silence.

            “But that’s the thing about it though, Zara clearly has her impact on Callie. They both start out as two separate people at the beginning of the year, then they become meshed together because Zara just overpowers, and influences Callie. Although, just like this year, eventually Callie realizes that she messed up and goes back to who she really is.” Daniel says with a lot of inflection in his voice. How long has he been thinking this through? “Let’s put it this way, she was a mess at her birthday party, because Zara had a massive influence on her. However, something changed, and when she realized that she made a mistake, she broke off from the things that Zara was telling her and repaired the burned bridges.”

            “What changed though?” Shawn asks.

            “I think it was a couple of family things going on, that and our friendship was dwindling. Between her opinions about alcohol based on her experience with me, and her family, and Zara’s opinions coming in all the time, I think she finally figured out how she really thought and felt about people.” Daniel explains, “I haven’t talked to her much on the subject, and I don’t know what she is thinking… but I do know Callie, and I do know Zara.”

            “So why does Zara stick around if she just goes back to Callie and trash talks all of us?”

            “Maybe because of Callie, and her love for gymnastics?” Shawn says.

            “All I know is that I have been in on many conversations between Zara and I, Callie and I, and all three of us. We were a trio, and I kind of broke that off because of Zara, so I know what goes on, and I know as well as Callie, that what Zara has to say most of the time is not nice. Callie on the other hand just listens to you, it’s weird, they are two completely different people. I wonder how they are friends.”

            “I can see that. Its obvious that they are completely different too. I mean, Callie takes care of our social media, and do you see the things that she posts? Here, let’s just take a look at this one, it’s not on our page, but on hers. It says, ‘what a family I have found in this amazing group of people. They have helped me when times were too tough to handle, they have picked me up off the ground when I was hurt, they were my crutch when I couldn’t walk, they cheered for me even when I didn’t make a skill. If you want to know what family looks like, look at this team, because that is what we are. That is what they are to me.’ And that’s not the only one, there are more, I also have a feeling that there are more touching video’s to come.” Shawn says, I feel his arm come back down, and the light from his phone fades behind my eyelids.

            “I just can’t believe after what Zara put her through that she is still friends with her. Zara keeps knocking her down, and Callie just stands back up and continues going from the place that she fell.”

            “She’s just different.” Another voice in the room says, and I can’t help but smile.

            I hear a little chuckle come from the other bed, and I imagine awkward eye contact is exchanged amongst everyone until Shawn finally gets the courage to ask, “what?”

            “It’s just a conversation that Callie and I had freshman year right before the school year was over, about being different. That’s all.” The subject changes and I pretend to wake up half way through it, I say goodnight to the team members in the room and head down the hall to the all girls room, and claim a bed before the others get back. The last thing I remember is wondering if Whitney made it for floor finals tomorrow.